PARCH - Hell in These Eyes

Tired of all the cute fall posts littering your feed? Need something heavy and haunting to get you in the mood for Halloween? Well look no further than the new release by PARCH. New Jersey’s noise boys are back at it with another grinding EP entitled Hell in These Eyes, and it roars louder than a chainsaw in a slasher film.

Recorded in a live setting, Hell in These Eyes manages to stamp the chaotic essence of PARCH onto tape. Between my headphones is a band raging in a room, the cymbals denting as the drumsticks smash into them, the squeal of feedback through distortion pedals and blaring speakers. The vocals are throaty and furious and near impossible to pin down. Yet this is the charm of PARCH—tight performances that sound as unruly as a barfight—a charm Hell in These Eyes captures in all its frenetic glory.

The four songs that make up this EP are aggressively raw in all the right ways. “Foretold” ends so abruptly it sounds like an abandoned take. “Sunnydale” rides growling power chords and a headbanging beat, while “Alligator” dredges the waters with blast beats and mud-drenched bass. The lyrics on this record are so sarcastically nihilistic; “Clear” screams itself into existence with the line “Wake up every day with a gun to my head,” while the tape ends with devolving howls of “This town is a hole” over a collapsing band. The sonics of Hell in These Eyes are pure sludge, vicious wet death coughs of vitriol and reckless abandon.

Though less than ten minutes in length, Hell in These Eyes keeps me riled for hours. The music of PARCH hits like a shot of adrenaline, and leaves me jonesing for another fix as soon as the last song ends. Hell in These Eyes raises hell in the ears, so maybe hell ain’t such a bad place to be.

My Top Track: "Clear"

Hell in These Eyes is out on Wet Cassettes; you can also grab a copy off their Bandcamp page.